Sentiments we wholeheartedly agree with…
Law firms are clinging to an outdated economic model designed to measure only financial capital. It’s an understandable model in that one can only manage what is measurable, and money is nothing if not easy to count.
Writes. Leigh Vickery is chief strategy and innovation officer at Level 2 Legal Solutions.
It continually stuns me that law firms do not see the value in operating more like businesses with long-term strategies and initiatives. When we reinvest in each other, productivity and profit rise – over time. When we invest in a holistic business model that measures financial, social, human, and environmental capital, it’s a win for everyone.
As Loic Moutault, president of Royal Canin, states, “Mutuality is a business blueprint that places collective well-being on equal footing with next quarter’s profits, knowing that financial returns can be spread out across both time and space if we consider ‘business-customer’ as a healthy, long-term relationship.”
Protecting Profit in a Post-Covid Culture
It’s remarkable – before the crisis – only those who had something to gain were questioning the strengths of profit maximization model as a way to run a law firm. And to be fair, other parts of the legal supply chain were racing to wear private equity as a badge of success. The unintended consequence of both ways of thinking manifests itself with what we see in legal news every day – more people losing jobs, more salaries being cut, and young legal talent suddenly faced with bleak futures and terrible debt.
Another remarkable observation I have seen during this pandemic – and the one that led me to think deeply about how to ensure the Economics of Mutuality remains the driving force of all of our organization’s innovation and decision making – is this: The human impulse in times of crisis (and opportunity for that matter) is to act in solidarity with one another. We instinctively know that we protect ourselves when we protect others. This is a good thing.
When we finally get through this current crisis, each of us will enter the world with new perspectives to offer. For young attorneys coming out of law school, the why will now be as important as the what. For the mid-level associates who have been fired and who know their real value to their former employer, the how will be as important as the how much.
Read the full article at. https://www.lexblog.com/2020/04/29/guest-post-we-need-a-legal-revolution-not-reformation/
